The Grinding, part 3

Professor Hagberg stood by the shore and watched the world in front of him turn to dust. Trees, plants, rocks and even animals dissolved into a black, coarse powder as an invisible hand combed the horizon. Not even the water stood a chance.

A normalised world, he thought.

He pulled up his left sleeve and inspected the scar tissue on his pale arm. Crude cuts that while healed now still formed a paradox in the symbolic language of grammar magic. He ran his fingers over the markings; like visible veins empty on blood, or hollow sculptures that lost their meaning.

The grinding crept closer, and left a silent landscape of black powder behind. The grass in front of him transformed as the inevitable came closer. The grinding was all about its by-product; if it wasn't for the terrible fact that it turned you into a powder, you wouldn't ever notice it.

It swept past a rock (turning it into dust) and continued onto his foot.

Nothing happened. Not even a tickling feeling.

I must admit, he thought as the grinding went over him and turned everything but him to dust, I'm a bit disappointed. It could've least tickled.

As the grinding continued on behind him, he burrowed his feet into the ground. Like a shovel, he lifted a patch of black dust into the air and let the wind catch it.

Fascinating. Tiny particles. Little entities. Just like she said.

He gazed over the black landscape that once was both water and hills. Though dust, it had kept its elevation so the silhouette of the area remained.

Let's see if these little entities remember anything, he thought and raised his arms. As he vocalized the strange symbolic language behind grammar magic, the millions and millions of dust particles in front of him slowly regained their previous colours. They started to lump together into bigger and bigger shapes.

Fascinating, he thought as the landscape returned to its former shape. It worked. It even rebuilt that poor fisherman over there, eye-patch and all.



(To be continued.)

Lost papers

The Grinding, part 2

Billobi stood by his bedroom window, trying hard not to stare into his own reflection. It was in the middle of the night and thus dark outside. He could hear the slow breathing of Ana sleeping on the bed behind him. Their daughter - Anabel - slept in another room and dreamt about soft things. Or, he could only hope she did. Anything was better than the dreams he'd been having since he left Horsehead two days ago.

They all revolved around the same sequence: talking to Mr Hagberg (or whoever he was; a ghost with a monocle), the fear that grew as the ghost kept talking and the eager to flee to a place that didn't exist. The urge to run back to Badgerbrough, to leave Horsehead behind and pretend the talk never happened.

His breath painted foggy paws on the cold window. He took another deep breath, held it for a second and then released it upon the glass. Grey fog. As he prepared to repeat the procedure, a similar pattern appeared next to his.

That's strange, he thought, I'm not even...

A face materialised on the other side of window before he had a chance to complete his thought. His heart gasped for blood and he was forced to take a step back, for that face was all too familiar to him. It was the face of a little girl.

I'm dreaming! his brain cried. Ana will wake me up any second now!

No, you're not, the face spoke to him although no sound was to be heard. It's all very real, Billobi Rustfoot. Do you recall my face?

He nodded slowly, and added: Don't kill me.

No, not now, the face answered. The Grinding has begun. Too soon, we're afraid.

We? Billobi asked.

The face ignored him, and continued: It was the Trickster's fault. He came to me, pretending to have questions for his book. But it was all a scheme. I told him to never return, but yet he did. The Trickster. The Turner of Squares. The Fixator of Changes. When I was to grind him for his returning, he played out his plan and became permanent. Reverser of Dust. Taker of No Giving. A scale that tips too much on both sides. We call him many things since that day, but I guess you best know him as the Grammarian.

I...know no one of that name, Billobi whispered.

I see that your dull senses haven't left you, Mr. Rustfoot. The Grammarian is tainting the balance that is the dust of this world. It builds, only to grind. And it grinds, only to build. But he took too much. He's unnatural. He's living on borrowed dust. Because of this, things that would have been need to step back, or take from future beings' dust. The dust in his body doesn't belong to him. We realised this too soon, and now the Grinding has begun to reclaim the portion that was stolen. But he has shielded himself, and is thus protected. The Grinding can't reclaim him, but it won't stop until it has.

It sounds a bit like...like it won't ever work, Billobi mumbled.

It won't, the face said grimly. When eternity ends, all that will exist is the Grammarian and the invisible force that is the Grinding, in a void that will never be rebuilt. You must stop this, Billobi Rustfoot.

At the sound of his name, a coldness struck his heart, and he shook his head as hard as he could. No, he whispered. No. No! Why me? I don't even know who this person is!

You do, the face answered. The Grammarian's mortal name is Carl August Hagberg. He needs to be destroyed before the Grinding reclaims us all and enters its infinite loop.

But... I can't... I don't even... I write! I can't possibly do what you ask of me, that's beyond my knowledge and sanity! You snapped your fingers and...took a piece of my fingernail. I snap my fingers and nothing happens. Why can't you do it? You're more powerful than I am!

Because the Grinding has already reclaimed my dust, the face said and disappeared.


(To be continued.)

The Grinding, part 1

It was a slow day at the antiques shop. Billobi walked over to the window, smiled at the sun, and returned to the counter. He picked up a stone, turned it over and put it down again. He then returned to the window and repeated the procedure a couple of times.

"Stop it", Thomas mumbled from the counter. "Please."

"I'm bored", Billobi said and picked up the stone again.

"Get a job then."

"I already have one."

"Then write something."

"About what? Nothing exciting ever happens."

"Make something up."

"No, that goes against my work ethics."

"Yes, I forgot you work for the Inquisitive. Very high standard there, how could I ever forget..."

Thomas dodged Billobi's swing and walked over to one of the many bookshelves. He pulled out a thick, brown book and carried it back to the counter. He placed it in front of Billobi with a large thump.

"Oh, please. Why do you even keep this? It wasn't even useful in school. I mean, it's large as a house and still the title barely fits on the front: 'The Complete Syntax of the Proper Spoken Word of Grammar Magic and How To Pronounce, Use and Apply It in the Everyday'. I've had enough experience with grammar magic to last for two life times."

"It's not mine", Thomas said and opened the large book at random. A page with the header The Inconvenience of Fractions turned up. "A gentleman sold it to me yesterday."

"Well, if you bought it, it's yours."

"I mean it's not the one I had in school. But it doesn't matter. What's more interesting is this: the gentleman who sold it to me was none other than Mr Hagberg himself."

"Who?"

"The author! C. A. Hagberg!"

"So? Did he sign it?"

"He's been dead for the last fifteen years!"

"Someone's playing a trick on you, my dear Thomas", Billobi said and closed the book. "I've seen a lot of things, but dry academics that return from their final crawl and walk the earth again isn't one of them."

"You know that awful picture in the beginning of the book? Of the author?"

"The one with the long hair and monocle? I remember Tristan drawing a moustache on his."

"The gentleman who sold me the book looked exactly like that."

"That doesn't prove anything. If I grow long hair and start wearing a monocle, does that make me the author of this awful book?"

Thomas picked up the book and returned it to the bookshelf again. He returned to the counter and said with a low voice: "My dear Bill, I'm not saying this to give you something to write about. I'm telling you this because I had this...chill running through my spine after he left. Something isn't right. Find him, and see for yourself. He had the latest issue of Horsehead Hoary under his arm, so I guess he's staying at the inn."

Billobi sighed, and said: "I'll do it just to prove you wrong. See you in a bit."

The inn was only a short walk away from Thomas' shop, much as everything else in Horsehead. As he entered the establishment, his eyes were immediately drawn to a pale figure at the counter. Whoever it was, he had long hair and was reading a book. Billobi felt pretty certain that he too was in on the joke now, and cursed his brother-in-law as he walked up to the counter.

Always the reporter, Billobi pulled up his notebook and a pen, turned to the man and said: "Dear Sir, I'm a reporter for the Badgerbrough Inquisitive. We're currently doing a Horsehead special and I was wondering if I may ask you some questions?"

The man put down his book and looked Billobi right in the eyes. This is obviously a joke, Billobi thought as he watched the man in front of him take out his monocle. He resembled the author in every possible way.

"My dear reporter", the man said with a low voice, "you shouldn't be talking to me."

"Really, now?" Billobi said and pretended to take notes. "And why is that?"

The man returned to his book again, and took his time to adjusting the monocle. Without looking up, he said: "Have you travelled the world, reporter? Been to many places?"

"Some, yes. Never crossed the eastern sea though."

"Ever been to Skiff-in-Loch? The treeless island to the far west? Ever travelled there, reporter? Ever been to the furthest and most desolated place on the western shore?"

Billobi felt his heart skip a beat, and he felt his grip around his notebook loosen. "Maybe."

"I have. I met a little girl there. Can't say I enjoyed the talk, even if it was certainly fascinating. Ever met her, reporter?"

Billobi shook his head.

"That's strange, because she had a message to you. Do you want to hear it? It goes: 'Start running, Billobi Rustfoot. The Grinding has begun.'"


(To be continued.)

The Sacrifice of Herogrios Minor (people)

It was in the western parts of the great Ogrebelly forest, just where the river Broad splits and turns into the Ten Snakes, that Billobi first met Herogrios Minor. Or rather what turned out to be one of many people with that name, as he found out during a rather confusing interview for the Inquisitive.

But these people had more than a strange name in common, Billobi learned, even if that was a remarkable thing in itself. When he asked around, they all answered the same: it was a name given to them not by their parents, but some higher cause. All of them had run away from home at the age of eleven, regardless of social class or background; some came from nobility, others from poverty. They hailed from all over the world, even from across the great waters. Billobi couldn't help but wonder if Tristan had met any Minors on the Acorn Afloat.

Besides sharing a name that no one could explain to him, they also had a firm belief that therianthropy was a disease that the world needed to be rid of (after asking around a couple of times, Billobi made a short note in his papers that said "theriansomething = human to animal to human to animal & so on"). As a Herogrios Minor, they made pilgrimages all over the world in search of these "sick" people. Through prayers, they explained, they transferred the disease from the victim to their own body so that they'd become a prison of flesh and blood to bind the illness. The transferred animal would live inside the Minor's body, and as more and more diseases were transferred these animals would become either a hunter or the hunted; nature would continue its way inside the Minor.

When Billobi asked about the consequences of these transfers, he was taken to a glade outside the camp. It looked like a slaughter had taken place, maybe a great bear finally catching up on its prey, but who lacked the hunger to eat it all. When he bumped into a fleshy piece that without doubt was a human arm, he wasn't so sure anymore.

"This is the last battle of Herogrios Minor", one of the Minors told him. "As our vessels fill up, the internal struggle between the animals therein builds up to enormous strength, until the day when our bodies no longer can bear the tension. This is what we strive for. This is the sign of approval we need. This shows us that we have completed our mission."